And you watch em disappear...to California or New York

Thanks, Governor-Elect Walker.

"Ice is not burdened by ideology"

Via ClimateProgress, watch this video from Peter Sinclair on the disappearance of Arctic sea ice:

If we had a media that reported the news (and not just what political parties say) the country would be convinced of the problem, and anxious to do something about it.

Tom Friedman: Wikileaks in China

Sometimes, Thomas Friedman gets it exactly right. Here, he imagines a Chinese diplomat in America writing back home:

"Most of the Republicans just elected to Congress do not believe what their scientists tell them about man-made climate change. America’s politicians are mostly lawyers — not engineers or scientists like ours — so they’ll just say crazy things about science and nobody calls them on it. It’s good. It means they will not support any bill to spur clean energy innovation, which is central to our next five-year plan. And this ensures that our efforts to dominate the wind, solar, nuclear and electric car industries will not be challenged by America."

Friedman's best line:

"The Americans have replaced working to be exceptional with talking about how exceptional they still are. "

Andrew Bird's one-man orchestra of the imagination

This is funny...

Motor Trend schools Rush Limbaugh on the Chevy Volt.

Wormwood hasn't yet been tossed down a long flight of stone steps, (metaphorically speaking) but its coming.

5 years from now, no one will remember that they ever listened to this clown.

Northern Wisconsin needs an Open Pit mine

I am sure this would be a good idea: An open pit mine in Northern Wisconsin. I am sure that the company running this operation will do a better job protecting the environment, than, say, those dirty coal companies in Appalachia:

" The company is a subsidiary of the Cline Group, which controls large coal reserves in Illinois and parts of the Appalachian region."

Oh, well. Fortunately, there aren't any sensitive rivers in the area.

"The Penokee Range is the headwaters for the Bad River, including Copper Falls State Park, and Lake Superior’s Chequamegon Bay, said Matt Dallman, director of conservation in northern Wisconsin for the Nature Conservancy."

I am sure that everything a coal company tells us about the environment will be on the up and up, so I don't foresee any environmental problems with the project.

Why we don't have to worry about global warming...

John Shimkus (R-Illinois)-the guy who might be in charge of the Energy and Commerce committee-just told us Man-Made Climate Change can't be happening because God told Shimkus He wouldn't let such a thing happen. So any hearings to prevent, mitigate, or prepare for any hypothetical devastation are unnecessary- though hearings investigating any Baal worshipers otherwise known as Scientists that do not accept the Representative's infallible theological interpretation might be valuable use of his committee's time.

Waiting to Derail...

The Mayor of Watertown: Walker's turning down High Speed Rail would make Wisconsin the "Laughing-stock of the Nation."

I hope the next election features ads with the governors of New York and Illinois getting on high speed trains saying "Thanks, Wisconsin!"

What is a laughing-stock, anyway? Did laughing-stocks fare better than my retirement funds over the last few years?

David Roberts had a similar reaction to the James Fallows article on Clean Coal technology: Why does Fallows write as if environmentalists' hatred of coal were the problem? The whole thing is worth reading, but here is a taste:

If "clean coal" development isn't happening in the U.S., it's not because DFHs (Dirty F*#king Hippies) are against it, it's because nothing is happening in the U.S. A piece focused on that corrupt, criminal inaction might rattle a few cages. A piece reassuring Big Coal and its many backers that they'll always be in the driver's seat won't.

Dylan Matthews concurs:

But, as Roberts notes, climate hawks aren't in charge. Because of the filibuster, and now GOP control of the House, the balance of power rests with people who deny the need to take just about any action to stop climate change. So why is Fallows concerned with rebutting them, (Quietnorth note: "them" refers to climate hawks or "Dirty F*&king Hippies" as the case may be) rather than trying to win over people to his right, who are actually in a position to change things?

Oil addiction creates half of our trade deficit

Via Matt Yglesias: The need for oil makes up half of the United States trade deficit.

Another way that turning down high speed rail is economically foolish.

Fallows Gets Played

I like James Fallows, but his article on Coal in the Atlantic is a very frustrating unforced error. (It seems the article is no longer available online-don't know if its temporary)

He could have written an article whose main point would be: "We really need strict Carbon Limits because that is the only way we are going to get cleaner technology, including maybe even a kind of coal extraction that doesn't screw up the land, destroy rivers and ruin the climate." He says as much in the article. It is a key point, and a point he probably thinks is a key point, but he chooses not to emphasize it.

Instead, we get an article that screams "WE NEED CLEAN COAL!" which will be further reduced in people's minds to "CLEAN COAL!". He throws in some very long shot ideas on a clean extraction process, and essentially, it becomes another unpaid-for Clean Coal ad whose purpose is to muddy the waters with a product that doesn't exist.

This may seem a bit cranky on my part. But I live in a state that is going to lose high speed rail because polluting industries helped elect an idiot for a governor who doesn't believe in addressing the climate as a problem. So for Fallows to criticize clean energy advocates by saying "We need all climate solutions, including clean coal", I wonder why he isn't directing that back at all the folks from Coal and Oil industries fighting climate legislation and clean energy transportation?

And why does he consider it "theological" to believe in wind and solar as tas answers, but not "theological" to think we are going to be saved by another version of the "clean coal" scam?

Set a strong cap on carbon emissions, and if that leads to a totally clean coal that doesn't screw up the land, no one will be happier than me. But Fallows' article just gives cover to more of the same.

Deep Thought

Bjorn Lomborg being repeatedly and thoroughly discredited is not enough for Andrew Sullivan to say his latest flip-flop is an "antidote to the fear behind climate change".

Personally, I am not interested in an antidote to fear about climate change, I would prefer an antidote to the actual climate change!

Bill Gates believes in Climate Change

Jeff Goodell interviews Bill Gates on his hope to find a technological solution to removing carbon from the energy equation.

I like this quote:

Energy innovation is not a nationalistic game. If tomorrow some other country invented cheap energy with no CO₂ output, would that be a bad day or a good day? For anybody who's reasonable, that would be, like, the best day ever. If all you care about is America's relative position, every day since the end of World War II has really been bad for you. So when somebody says to me, "Oh, the Chinese are helping to lower the cost of it, or creating something that emits less CO2," I say, "Great." The Chinese are also working on new drugs. When your children get sick, they might be able to take those drugs.

Another required reading article by Jeff Goodell here. Rolling Stone: One of the last bastions of actual long form journalism.

Financial shortsightedness begins

In a bid to demonstrate his commitment to financial austerity , Wisconsin's Governor elect Scott Walker has said he will maintain his campaign promise to kill all highway and high speed rail projects and return the money to the federal government.

Oh. He isn't killing the expensive highway projects? Just the rail projects?

Walker knows what climate scientists and military experts don't know- we will always have an unlimited amount of cheap oil, and climate change doesn't exist. So, it won't cost us anything to continue ignoring these made up problems.

But having a high speed rail line foster an economic corridor between Chicago and Minneapolis built with federal dollars will impose an awful burden on Wisconsin.

I am sure the voters will thank him for it in the next election. I know that the States that take those federal dollars will thank him!

F.A. Hayek: There is no free market right to pollute the air

As Matt Yglesias notes, the current intellectual father of the modern Free Market, anti-government movement had no problem with government controlling air pollution. There is no inherent "right" under a free market to pollute the air.

People who opposed a carbon tax or cap and trade were actually opposing the most free market ways of dealing with air pollution. All that is left is something that looks much more like government regulation of the kind free market people don't like-mandating emission standards. But they only have themselves to blame. John McCain at one time actually understood this, but turned his back on it.

A Carbon tax IS the correct conservative response to Climate Change

Because Congress isn't in the mood to even discuss climate change, the only climate change legislation will come in the form of Clean Energy Jobs bills. But as free market folks point out (at least in those rare instances when they are being truly free market) money will go to the groups that have the most lobbying clout, not the groups that are creating the most truly green technology.

Hence the ethanol boondoggle.

A truly courageous free market approach would tax carbon in order to allow the market to settle on best alternatives. Make the tax revenue neutral by using the proceeds to reform the tax system.

As it stands, we can only count on climate change responses coming from three directions:

Courageous states like California (If Big Business doesn't sink their plans)
Defense Research(The military can't afford to pretend that there isn't a problem with fossil fuels)
The Obama administration using regulatory methods to mandate cleaner technology through the Clean Air Act.



Otherwise, we can only hope that price trends for fossil fuels go high enough quickly enough to force the market into alternatives. This is happening, but unless we are very lucky, it will happen too slowly.

The Wheel of Change

Climate change is happening faster than we are responding. Right now, it seems politically impossible to make the changes we need to make-but in this Dominique Browning interview, Peter Goldmark of the Environmental Defense Fund hopes for a movement of young people in the next generation.

I'm with James Fallows...

The Duffer's Paradox

One advantage of becoming a runner in midlife is that I delayed the inevitable connection between age and performance. If a person runs at their peak performance in their 20's and 30's and 40's, they probably have hit their Personal Record somewhere in there.


But since I didn't start running till my late 40's, I had never felt that I had run as fast as I was going to. At my level of fitness, the degree of training was a much more important variable than age.

I call this the Duffer's Paradox.

This last spring, I changed my stride a bit and hit a 2:04 half marathon, and had hopes of even doing a sub four marathon. Not a lofty goal for runners, but to steal an idea from Blake, one goal for the Lion and one for the Ox is tyranny.

But now I find that I may have hit my personal best, and 2:04 in the half will be as good as it gets. I had quite a bit of pain early in the summer, which flared back later on, and it appears that I have stress fractures in my upper legs.

Don't get me wrong, I haven't given up running. But I know the day will come when I have to start thinking of other motivations for running than hitting new personal records.

Libertarianism and the floods in Pakistan and Bangladesh

Matt Yglesias captures an essential point about libertarianism in ideal vs practical form:

The orthodox view among American conservatives and libertarians and “free market” advocates more generally is that if I want to walk up to the edge of my lawn and then turn my garden hose on and start messing up your lawn, than the correct capitalist response is to say that I’m doing something wrong. If I totally wreck your garden, that’s worse. If I spray water into your house and wreck your stuff, that’s worse too. Even if your house is kind of dumpy and poor and not worth very much money, it’s still wrong for me to just randomly spray water into it. Even if I really really enjoy spraying your house, it’s still wrong. I either need to stop spraying your house or else I need to reach an agreement with you about how I’m going to compensate you for the right to spray. If I insist on continuing to spray your house with water without mutual acceptable compensation, then shutting my operation down should be a matter of some social priority.

If that were the case, then libertarians would be out front in wanting to stop pollution, especially greenhouse gases like C02. No matter how useful or practical the action was, if it violated other people's property (even poor people!) it would have to be shut down. But as Yglesias notes, in practice free market conservatives and libertarians generally support policies that reflect the interests of their wealthy patrons.

Bear etiquette

I was biking on "Old K" when a mother bear and three (yes, three!) cubs lumbered out onto the road in front of me and just sat there! At one in the afternoon! I went a good ways in the other direction...and tried to get my fingers steady enough to work the cell phone camera's buttons, to no avail. I was a bit shaky. The mother bear and three just sat there for a bit. My bike derailleur and shifters are thirty years old. If the bear decided to go after me, I had enough space that I could have outpedalled it, IF everything worked right. But they soon moved in into the woods, the cubs first. I sat a while, wondering what the official polite time was to wait for the bears to disappear. Was there some sort of human-bear contract about this? It was the kind of etiquette question I really wanted to get right. Or should I just go back and take the long way, on Highway K? I was about to go forward again when another cub, this one scrawny and bedraggled, crossed the road. Geez, this was Day Care for Bears! Sorry, no pictures.

Fireworks are for the fourth, and the fourth is over, cont...

People launch fireworks in the northwoods for one of two reasons:

1) they think the northwoods is a wilderness: they can do what they want because no one else is around. The truth is,it isn't a wilderness, its a neighborhood, there are lots of folks around who come to the northwoods for quiet recreation. It is what the northwoods has to offer, that no other place has. If a person launch fireworks here as opposed to wherever they are from, its because they think it doesn't matter to most people who vacation or live here. But it does.

2) Some people know, but really just don't care, that other people are around who want to enjoy the northwoods in peace. Like people with loud mufflers, part of the enjoyment is screwing with someone else's private space. As we rank what values we should try to have in the northwoods, violation as a form of pleasure shouldn't rank very high.

Stop using fireworks in the northwoods.

Fireworks are for the Fourth, and the fourth is over.

Time to let the Northwoods do what the Northwoods does best. Loons, wood thrush, owls, peepers, coyotes-Lots of critters sound great all by themselves!

Wisconsin's Sensenbrenner and stock in BP

Nothing to see here. A Representative who will investigate BP owns a bunch of stock-and stands to lose a bundle. Will he recuse himself? Probably not. Probably difficult to find many not tied to BP. Which shows why it is impossible to get a climate bill through Congress.

Worldwide, Scientists defend Climate Science research

Many people just aren't interested in the science, anyway-the supposed East Anglia "scandal" was just cover to continue pretending there is some kind of scientific debate about climate change.

But for those who still might have respect for science, but think there is some kind of debate about human made climate change, read this.

A note on Government Regulation

Since it is earth day, it is a good time to note a particular point about how environmental issues are misrepresented in the news. In this Wisconsin Public Radio news program "DNR Butts heads over phosphate controls", we are informed that controls on Phosphates are wrong because they represent intrusive government regulation.

In a free market society, you are allowed to make and sell stuff to me as long as, in the process, we don't screw with other people's stuff.

The purpose of Government, on a truly "Free Market" view, is to stop us if in fact we are screwing up other people's stuff. In the real world, however, we have never lived in a free market society so the government decides, through intrusive government regulation, how much we can mess up other people's stuff.

If a person liked to swim or fish in a lake that is now turning into a fetid, stinking green algae swamp because of phosphates, it was "Intrusive Government Regulation" that allowed it to happen, by choosing to allow users of phosphates to dump them into other people's (in this case, our) property.

If we are the folks who make a profit by turning lakes into fetid, stinking algae swamps, it is also "Intrusive government regulation" that will stop us.

In other words, as long as we don't adopt a strictly Libertarian Free market society (which would prevent all pollution, but at a cost no society will ever choose to bear), then the give or take of "intrusive government regulation" is what all of us are going to live with. It shouldn't be raised as some sort of evil on only one side of the equation.

Krazy talk from Ken Krall

I missed this column in Newsnorth.net-a great local online newspaper. Ken Krall seems to feel that, in addition to producing deer for hunters, the northwoods may have some other purposes as well, and that we should consider those purposes in our overall deer management. I don't really know what to make of it.

From newsofthenorth: Oneida County offers Trail maps

quiet recreation is good for business and good for health!

Water resources and the environment

Give credit where its due: Lakeland Time's Richard Moore writes an article that inches (comparatively) towards balance: Instead of simply aligning business interests against regulation, he quotes a number of sources that point out that water resources are important to property values, business, and health.

What would really be helpful would be to show a map of Wisconsin that highlighted:
:
-Past water problems and how much they cost taxpayers and businesses to clean up or fix.
-Potential future water problems and how much they will cost the taxpayers and businesses if they occur.

Too often, costs to business are only put on one side of the regulatory question. Regulation certainly has its costs, but sometimes, lack of regulation costs even more.

Since I don't have to be fair and balanced, It must be said that Representative Scott Gunderson seems like the kind of knob that believes there is no problem an unregulated free market economy can't fix, therefore, water resources and global warming can't be real problems.

Do we really want to drive anymore? (cont) Green Road

This company is already on the case.

Do we really want to drive anymore? (cont.) "You've been speeding..."

Another slate article explores installing driver feedback monitors. What if insurance companies used feedback monitors to determine car insurance prices?

Do we really want to drive anymore? (cont.) Car's computers

Slate's Farhood Manjoo is right: the most dangerous part of a car is behind the wheel. Computers have made cars safer. But he is still unserious as he won't mention the most obvious and inexpensive way to make cars safer: Lower the top speeds cars can go to 70 mph. You can listen to a radio interview here

Quote of the day

Alexander McCall Smith channels Plato, perhaps....

"The problem, of course, was that people did not seem to understand the difference between right and wrong. They needed to be reminded about this, because if you left it to them to work out for themselves, they would never bother. They would just find out what was best for them, and they would call that the right thing. That's how most people thought."

Alexander McCall Smith, The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency


This last January was the hottest on record.

Definitions

If you are running for a political office, you are a politician. If that is too circular for you, try this: If you considered how to frame an issue in order to increase the likelihood of getting elected, you are a politician.

If your method of framing an issue in order to get elected is to say you aren't a politician, then you are a politician...and a huckster.

Spreading disinformation update...

Don't be fooled by this astroturf debate.

Experts believe global climate change is real, that human production of greenhouse gases is likely to be disastrous, and that we need to drastically reduce emissions-something that will require courage and creativity.

Some corporations will be winners, and some-like Exxon- will be losers.

Fortunately for Exxon and unfortunately for us, they don't need to prove that global warming isn't a problem, they only need to spread the idea that there is some sort of "debate". Then, any real solution to the problem like Cap and Trade or a carbon tax will seem extreme. (Same tactics used by Tobacco companies at the expense of thousands of lives-but this time many more people will die and the price tag will be beyond calculation)

A quick web search will help you connect the dots from the Marshall Institute to Exxon.

Again: As close as consensus gets; scientist believe man made climate change is happening, and it will be a disaster if we don't act.

What Exxon and the Marshall Institute are up to is not "conservatism" or the defense of the free market, it is pure self interest at the terrible expense of humanity. Consider: If there was a 20 percent chance of a terrorist attack causing a fraction of the damage that experts tell us will happen due to climate change, shouldn't we act to stop it? The thing is, we should be much more sure of global climate change than a 20 percent possibility

Rising Sun Grange

An itch I haven't scratched: The Rising Sun Grange. I drive by this building every week, and I have always wondered at its history. It isn't a Wisconsin-like name. (On the other hand, hwy 26 also directs us to El dorado. Must be an interesting story there as well.) But the contrast between the sign and the signed grows every year. With all of us, maybe?

Wisconsin State Journal editorial on Harley Noise

The Wisconsin State Journal has an editorial about motorcycle noise that doesn't actually address any of the complaints about motorcycle noise. Instead, they take umbrage at a group called "Noise Free America", calling them shrill for, well, taking umbrage at motorcycle noise.

I don't know anything about the group "Noise Free America". Perhaps they are shrill and use a shotgun approach to advocacy. But, from their press release, the group seems to make four points that the editorial staff could have attempted to refute with evidence and argument. To summarize:

-Harleys are loud, as motorcycles go.
-Many Harley owners make a virtue of making their bikes even louder with after-market tinkering.
-Noise is unhealthy for us.
-Noise screws with a lot of other people's interests and activities.


Instead, the only point that the Wisconsin State Journal manages to address is the final one, and only the way that all such complaints are addressed: By name calling. Or, to be more generous, with the following argument: "Complaining that noise screws with your interests and activities isn't a valid point because we don't recognize your interests and activities."

A recent television commercial showed the joy of Harley riders cruising along winding rural Wisconsin roads. Rural roads often wind because they follow river valleys. Canoeists and Anglers also like river valleys-partly because they are ways of getting away from human noise. This does not have to be a conflict because motorcycles don't have to make so much noise.

Albino Deer Blogging

I was grading assignments at home in December when I looked up to see him. This one really seems to like sunflower seeds this time of year-I think we took a picture of him last Christmas. I only had my cell phone camera, and the picture was taken through the kitchen window. Bruce Card helped improve the image. (Photoshopped the antlers and colored it white. In spite of what you hear, there are no albino deer in Wisconsin. )